Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Read in 2015 - 23: History of Phoenicia

George Rawlinson's "History
of Phoenicia" was first published in 1889 (mine was, of course, a free ebook from Amazon's Kindle shop). Many of the methods
historians and archaeologists use nowadays to learn more about the past
were not yet invented, and some key finds had not yet
been discovered. But there existed already enough material to provide
the interested reader with a wide range of information about this
ancient people.

The Bible makes frequent
mention of Phoenicia and the Phoenicians. Cities like Tyre and Sidon
were well established and known throughout the world in which those who
penned prophecies and the gospels moved.

The author bases his work on many more sources, though: Apart from the Bible, he cites
numerous other authors (both ancient and modern), and of course he relies on
buildings and objects found to describe the Phoenicians
in much detail.

The book is neatly seperated
into chapters, covering subjects such as the geography of the place
associated with "Phoenicia", the origins of the "Phoenician race"
(considered without any doubt a Semitic people), their
architecture, arts, daily lives, religion, politics, commercial success
and much more.

I must admit that I
quick-read some of the chapters. Lengthy descriptions of each valley and
for how many miles it runs west or south and how far it is from one
river to the next were not what I was really interested
in, nor was I keen on learning each and every battle all those
city-kings fought against each other, or in changing alliances. But the
chapters that described the ingenious way of building ports and walls,
the way the Phoenicians tried to (successfully) establish
peaceful commercial relations with most other people rather than
attacking and destroying them, or risk being attacked and destroyed
themselves; what we can deduct about their way of thinking from
inscriptions in temples and on burial monuments; how modern
some of their objects of daily use appear, how they simplified the more
complicated alphabets and sylabets of great empires that existed before
them; all this made for interesting reading on my way to and from work.

The author, George Rawlinson,
lived from 1812 to 1902. He was thorough and clearly knew what he was
writing about; whenever something could not be proved, he said so, and
was not given to mere speculation. The last 20
% of the book consists of footnotes, giving the interested reader ample
opportunity to learn more or conduct their own research. According to
wikipedia, he was not only an Oxford scholar, historian and Christian
theologian. In his 20s, he played cricket for
the university and appeared in 5 matches considered first class.

He was married; wikipedia does not mention any children.

PS: I have just looked him up on the German version of wikipedia. While, as I said, the English one does not mention any children, the German one says he had NINE children - five daughters and four sons - with his wife Louisa.

It's funny, isn't it, how everything - even science - follows trends and fashions. You are right, we don't hear much about the Phoenicians these days.Their seafaring skills were the subject of an extra chapter in this book, of course.